Frances Kai-Hwa Wang and Little Brother biking to fall soccer practice | photograph courtesy of my daughter Margot

by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, contributor
Oh no!

How did that happen?

I thought I took precautions! I was careful!

Grrr.

Biker’s tan.

You can always spot the bicyclists by that straight white line three to four inches above their knee and little white sock line around the ankle. I have been slathering on the sunscreen every day, trying (hopelessly) to stay fair and lovely (joke), but to no use. I know once that line forms, it is almost impossible to shake. Only two weeks into May and I am already marked. Everyone can see my secret.

As a kid, my bike was freedom. I biked to the park for ceramics class, I biked to ballet class, I biked to school, I biked to my Nai Nai’s house. I remember swooping in and out of the parked cars along Colorado Boulevard as I blasted downhill, signaling each swerve with my left hand, until my jeans invariably got caught in the chain, forever punctured with double stripes of oil (Sorry, Mom).

Then somehow, during awkward adolescence, I became embarrassed and hid with my bike inside the garage. I remember propping up the back tires on two paint cans and cycling inside the garage, where no one could see me. I have no idea why; it seemed to make sense at the time.

When I lived in Kathmandu, Nepal, bicycling made sense again. It was a way to get from one place to another. It was a way to stay independent. It was not like the bike geeks in their neon spandex biking 90 miles going nowhere. I especially loved not having to bargain or argue with taxi drivers who never wanted to take me all the way up to my house on the hill by the Russian Embassy. And I picked up some technique along the way.

I always wore a kurtha salwar (shalwar kameez in Hindi) or sari at the time to try to blend in a little better. What I did not realize was that I was still a girl out and about on my own. Not normal. I also wore a helmet. Really not normal. I was the only girl on a bike in all of Kathmandu. Totally not normal. And biking fast. Smile. I remember strangers telling me they saw me biking out by Tribhuvan University a full year after I had actually been there. I suppose I was quite a sight, elbows and knees in, head tucked down for speed, with two long braids and long flowing orange chiffon scarf flying behind me as I flew down that big hill from the university.

This year, my twelve-year-old daughter, Niu Niu, got strong-armed into biking to school with her friends on Bike to School Day. She did not want to do it and grumbled the whole way.

Because May is National Bike Month, my eight-year-old son, Little Brother, and I also started biking to and from school, and we have been having a blast. It means waking him up ten minutes earlier, and it means changing in and out of bike shorts and bike shoes twice a day (actually, yesterday I did not change and wore my bike shorts under my skirt to a lecture I gave at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); it seemed appropriate). We still need to ask our friend Kevin if he can teach us how to lube our bikes.

Every day I come home singing, “I love my bike, I love my bike, I love my bike.” Who would have thought?

May is also Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Having special months to celebrate the achievements and heritage of Asian Pacific Americans, to bike, to write poetry, and more may not seem like much, however, these months get folks excited, talking, and goading each other into action. I mean, I have been looking at my girlfriend Kate’s gorgeous Colorado mountain biking photos on Facebook for months, yet I did not get the bikes down from the rafters until my daughter “had to” bike to school with her friends.

In the way that an unexpected wink from a handsome man can be a catalyst to wink back and see what might follow, the results can be quite unexpected.

Shout out to Magnetic North and Taiyo Na and Heather Park for their new music video, “New Love.” Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She team-teaches Asian Pacific American History and the Law at the University of Michigan and University of Michigan Dearborn. She is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blogs at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com and rememberingvincentchin.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

Big Brother Roland called today to see what my plans were for Mother’s Day and to ask if I wanted to join him and his family in case the children were not with me this day. He is always looking out for me and invites me every year.

I declined, as always, because I will be writing (and buying an iPhone). A sudden burst of inspiration and opportunity has me writing constantly these days, even in my dreams.

However, it does feel strange to realize that this will be the first time ever that I will not be able to be with my children for Mother’s Day. Their dad wanted to take them somewhere this weekend. No, it did not make much sense to me either, but we have this fight every year.

When I tried to dissuade him of it, he threatened to not let them compete in the Michigan Chinese Schools Storytelling Contest State Championships the weekend previous. So I had to choose.

Of course I chose the State Championships. Two children qualified for the State Championships and they had teammates depending on them. (Did I mention that Hao Hao won first place in the state this year? Awesome!)

I did not think it would be a big deal. Mother’s Day is just one day. The children and I show our love and appreciation of each other every day, so the actual date should not be that important. The children and I often celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter a day early to accommodate work, relatives, and travel plans. We often postpone M’s January birthday party until after finals. We certainly never get around to cleaning the house for Chinese New Year’s until…uhhh…ever.

And I am the queen of making the schedule work.

Besides, we always go out to dinner with all our friends after the State Championships, so I figured that we could just have that count as our Mother’s Day dinner. It would be more fun with friends in any case.

However, despite my rationalizations, I was surprised to discover how upset my children were. They really wanted to be with me on Mother’s Day.

Eight-year-old Little Brother sulked and complained to anyone who would listen about how unfair it was that he could not spend Mother’s Day with his Mother. I tried to explain to him about different calendars and schedules. Chinese Father’s Day, for example, is August 8 (In Mandarin, the date 8/8 sounds like “Ba Ba,” a homonym for father), so that is when we usually celebrate Father’s Day with my father. I told him that when I was teaching my Chinese class how to read a Chinese calendar, we discovered that the full moon (the 15th of every lunar month) was going to be on Cinco de Mayo this month, a weird cross-cultural coincidence. I even tried to convince him Star Wars Day “May the Fourth be with you” was the cooler day to celebrate. I told him how Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate any holidays at all because they believe every day should be a celebration.

He would have none of it.

Unfortunately, I forgot about kodomo no hi (Japanese Children’s Day) until after he fell asleep that night, although I doubt that he would have bought that either.

Whenever one of our “traditions,” however defined, goes awry because of scheduling or illness or some crazy thing, I always try to redefine that tradition for the children and to give them the skills to create something else to hold onto. Now the children are learning to do it for themselves.

Little Brother decided that he “had to” get me a doughnut for Mother’s Day. However, since he won’t be with me that day, he started walking the dog to the grocery store once or twice a week, every week for the past month, to get me (and him) an early doughnut for Mother’s Day. “I’m a big boy now.”

The children are agitated and I am aggravated. Still, there must be something we can salvage from this. Instead of trying to force my friend the MacArthur genius to go see “The Avengers” with me, I call my mom.

“Hi Mom.”

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She teaches and is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

How cool is it that a fifteen-year-old high school student carries a picture of a world leader in her backpack rather than Justin Bieber? | photograph courtesy of my daughter Margot 

by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

My fifteen-year-old daughter Hao Hao came back from school last week pretending to sniffle, “All my friends and even my teacher laughed at me.”

That was very much out of the ordinary, so I gathered her into my arms and asked, “What happened?”

She explained that they were talking about the Cold War during AP US History class, when the conversation segued to Putin and some of the things he did at the end of the Cold War.

This is when Hao Hao said, “I have a picture of Putin here in my bag,” and pulled it out to show everybody.

Instead of being appreciative of this instant handy-dandy visual aid, her friends asked, “Uhhh, why do you have a picture of Putin in your bag?”

“Well, he was on my wall next to my JFK poster, but then he fell off, so I put him in my bag,” she answered a little too straightly.

Her friends just stared, open-mouthed, wanting but not daring to ask the next obvious question, “Uhhh, why do you have a picture of JFK on your wall?”

Instead, her teacher simply declared, “You are certainly a unique individual.”

Hao Hao spent the rest of the afternoon puzzling over why her friends found all this so strange. I just smiled, secretly patting myself on the back for having raised such a, well, unique individual.

The irony is that for most of my childhood, I desperately longed to be “normal,” or to even understand what “normal” entailed. As a child of immigrants, I often conflated “normal” with “American” with “the right way” with what I saw on television, and I felt largely left out. I spent much of my childhood (ok, ok, and adulthood too) feeling foolish for getting caught doing things “the wrong way” when I did not even know that there was any other way, and I thought it was my fault for being obtuse and forever awkward.

So I try to make sure that my children at least know what counts as “normal,” even if we do not aspire to it. I give them as much information as possible so they can choose their own path rather than just defaulting to whatever is right in front of them (or simply doing the opposite because it is the opposite). However, I often find that they are much more insightful than I ever was—than I still am—they not only know what is “normal,” they also know what is “alternative,” as well as all the various “alternative alternatives.”

As a teenager, I loved reading Miss Manners and Ann Landers for the small window their readers opened onto “normalcy,” especially regarding issues that “normal people” would, of course, be too polite to say directly. As an adult, these windows come more infrequently, but when they do, the opinions revealed are much more surprising because the issues have been hidden away so deeply, sometimes even to that person herself.

There has been a lot of talk lately about unconscious racism. Toure wrote a provocatively titled article in Time, “Inside the Racist Mind,” about a woman who admitted she was racist and who said that racist thoughts kept popping into her mind unbidden, even though she knew it was wrong. Then, after the W.F. Kellogg Foundation’s America Healing conference, Psychology Today wrote that different health care due to doctors’ unconscious racism did not make them racist. What? Jezebel called out hipster racism as not ironic, just racist. Then Ashton Kucher’s unfunny brown-face Popchips commercial somehow came out without anyone asking, “Yo, is this racist?”

We all have biases and unconscious programming of various sorts, however, I am uncomfortable simply explaining it away, “I was raised that way.” That is too easy. Sure, there are lots of people raised by racists who then become racists themselves. However, there are also lots of people raised by racists (and sexists and homophobes and Republicans, etc.) who are not. What is it that makes some people choose a different path? We can be bigger than our programming.

Try it. Do you have to eat everything on your plate like your mother told you to? Or could you change if you wanted?

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She teaches and is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

What art and poetry do to you in the springtime. L-R Evan Huang of BaoHaus Restaurant and Lisa Lee of ThickDumplingSkin.com at the Heidelberg Project in Detroit, Michigan. | Photograph by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, contributor.

A sudden cold snap has sent me scurrying for my Hello Kitty scarf and gloves. Hard to remember that only one month ago, I was splashing through puddles at balmy midnight, wearing a Hawaiian print skirt and flip flops.

A woman I see every morning walking to school growled about the cold this morning, and I, for some reason, sang out, “But it’s National Poetry Month! The sun is shining, the birds are singing.”

She was not quite sure how to respond.

On my way home, I found a stack of five free SAT and ACT and AP Calculus AB prep books on a neighbor’s lawn. A Tiger Mom score! Life does not get better than this.

So here we are, in the last week of National Poetry Month. A few more days to take the NaPoWriMo challenge of writing a poem a day. Last year, I was so impressed by all those poets who dared to publicly take the NaPoWriMo challenge, writing and publishing in real time, that this year I wanted to try, too.

I am not a poet. I just write essays. However, I am quite easily seduced by a good turn of phrase. (Hear that, Beau Sia? Oops, did I just say that out loud? Uh, just kidding! Uh, sort of…).

Now the sun is shining, the birds are singing.

I never really understood poetry. For years, I thought that there was something wrong with me, something lacking in my education, that I simply was not smart enough to “get” poetry. Finally, I went to the library and borrowed ten years’ worth of “The Best American Poetry” anthologies and read them backwards in time, one year at a time, hoping that by simple immersion, I could figure this poetry thing out. I read through the volumes, several poems a night, for weeks.

When I got to the tenth volume, published ten years before that day, I came across a poem about Szechuan chili peppers set in a Thai restaurant in Berkeley. The restaurant owner’s son was wearing a full Samurai costume and scowling at the customers. A Chinese gang sat making deals in the back. Huh? I searched for any possible way to turn this bizarre mishmash of images into something meaningful, something deep, something lyrical, and I realized that this was just the same old mixing up of random Asian American stereotypes that I see anywhere else. There was no magic. This poet was just a person like anyone else. His poetry might work for people with the same stereotype confusion. It did not work for me. (This is why ethnic studies is so important, Arizona!)

I stopped reading “The Best American Poetry” and found a book of Asian Pacific American poetry instead—which I understood, which made me laugh, which made me think, which did not offend. Then I started seeking out Asian Pacific American poetry and poets.

Slowly, I realized that the problem was not me, the problem was finding poems that fit me.

A few months ago, Little Brother’s second grade class all wrote poems entitled, “I am From.” His poem included this stanza: “I am from/ rice cooking,/ spam sizzling,/ hot cocoa spinning in the microwave,/ curry burning,/ and cookies baking in the oven.” Little Brother has already found that fit.

I have been teaching a class at Washtenaw Community College called “Finding your Voice,” and the key exercise is simply writing every day (a la Natalie Goldberg, Julia Cameron, and Carolyn See). It does not have to be good. It does not have to be finished. It just has to be ten minutes (or three pages or 1000 words) every day.

Every day.

The amazing thing I always find is that as our writing becomes more honest, more in tune with who we are, we also become more honest, more in tune with who we really are. I like who I am so much better when I am writing every day. When I am too heartbroken or my head too cluttered to write, the rest of my life falls apart, too.

Did I mention that the sun is shining, the birds are singing? And I am writing.

How about you?

Note: April 26 is National Poem in your Pocket Day. Here is the poem I will be carrying around in my back pocket, Li-Young Lee’s, “Persimmons,” published in Rose (1986), which takes me right back to my parents’ persimmon orchard (we had both hachiya and fuyu persimmons)… 

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media’s Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

2012 ITASA Midwest Conference speakers at University of Michigan: L-R: Kevin Lien, New Media Artist:http://www.youtube.com/KevinLienMusic, Evan Huang, Co-owner: http://BaoHausNYC.com/, Samuel Wang, Founder: http://Akufuncture.com/, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Writer/Activist: http://franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com/, Lisa Lee, Founder: http://ThickDumplingSkin.com/, HoChie Tsai, Founder: http://TaiwaneseAmerican.org/. Photo Credit Eric Kao

by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, contributor

Purdue University recently had some race-related troubles in the form of a racist anti-Asian Twitter account(s) that denigrated and ridiculed Asian and Asian American students there. The Asian American community was offended. Others thought it was funny. The university was slow to respond.

As the Asian Pacific American media began talking about it nationally, I began to fantasize about a more effective solution. I knew that two very cool Asian American activists happened to be headed to Purdue for various Asian Pacific American Heritage Month activities. I conjured up the image of the two of them dressed up in sky blue superhero costumes with fluttering capes and bright yellow masks and gloves, parachuting into the center of Purdue to take care of business.

Ka-pow! Sock! Bam!

Sometimes, in the face of depressing news item after depressing news item, I long for a superhero to set things right as cleanly and simply as they do in the comic books.

So here we are at the height of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month—which is technically in May, but is often celebrated in April on college campuses because students are out of school by May—and it has been conference after talent show after panel discussion after film festival after art exhibit and more. It is always a busy time, but this year has been particularly invigorating.

I recently spoke at the International Taiwanese American Student Association (ITASA) Midwest Conference. I used to think of conferences as a top-down sort of experience. Speakers speak, students learn. However, this time, I spent a lot of time with the other speakers, each one cooler, with more swagger, than the next. In the course of casual conversation and serious brainstorming (and many inside jokes #qiuhaoying), we reexamined our own projects, we learned from each other’s different perspectives and skills, and we came up with all sorts of fun multifaceted collaborations to pursue. We became friends, colleagues, allies, now connected in real life as well as virtual life.

Maybe the answer is to launch our own teams of superheroes.

Last week, a study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and discussed in The Atlantic concluded that African American women confront racists directly, and Asian American women feed them bad-tasting jelly beans. What? Because it is their culture. Huh? From The Atlantic:

“CONCLUSION: Our racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds shape how we react to racism. The researchers write, ‘Our findings are consistent with black women’s cultural heritage, which celebrates the past accomplishments of other black confronters of discrimination, as well as Asian women’s heritage, which advises finding expedient resolutions in the name of peaceful relations.’”

In the resulting Asian Pacific American social media discussion of this problematic study (amid jokes about going out to the store to buy more bad-tasting jelly beans and snarky comments about whether the bunny in the photo should be yellow to better reinforce stereotypes), an idea for an Asian Pacific American girl empowerment and leadership workshop was born.

I had had the idea to do these workshops years earlier, but I did not have the courage to do it by myself. Now that I suddenly have a team of allies, courage comes more easily.

We can be our own superheroes.

For me, many of these connections started at the Asian Pacific American bloggers’ conference formerly known as Banana 1 and 2, which brought together Asian Pacific American/Canadian bloggers from across the country to actually meet and talk and connect in the real world. Gil Asakawa writes about the evolution of the Banana conference into its latest incarnation, the new and much expanded V3con (Vision. Visibility. Voice.), the Asian American Digital Media Conference. I am so grateful to the leadership of Joz Wang, the new president of the Asian American Journalists Association Los Angeles Chapter, for making this happen. I had been so isolated in the Midwest, and now everything has changed.

As nimbly as many of us move through the virtual world, there is still so much to be said for sitting across from another person in real life in real time and being able to see and hear and touch them directly, otherwise so much is lost in translation.

Now watch out!

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media’s Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

from textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com

My twelve-year-old daughter was recently backed up against a wall at school by someone much taller and heavier than her—that classic pose with one hand against the wall behind her head, body leaning into her as he talked, running his other hand through his hair, acting so cool. She did not feel like she was in any danger, but she did not like the feeling of being trapped there.

So back home in the safety of our kitchen, we practiced different strategies for what she could do if it ever happened again. She could push him back with two hands. She could casually take one step away from the wall. She could even point, “Look, over there!” She does not need to make a big deal out of it, but practicing these small adjustments empowers her to discretely shift control of the situation.

I shared this story with the very cool Lisa Lee, a former publisher of Hyphen Magazine and co-founder of  ThickDumplingSkin.com, then peppered her with awkward and inappropriate questions.  She works with young Asian Americans on issues of body image and self-esteem. Together we worried about young women finding themselves, staying safe, having fun, demanding to be treated with respect, and cultivating their characters. It is not easy, especially with all the different messages they get. There is a fine line between sexy and slutty, free-spirited and cheap, nice and taken advantage of. We like to think we can navigate that line with spirit and style, but as this perfectly titled article in Jezebel says, “People Are Terrible, So Stop Putting Your Boobs on the Internet.”

Figuring this out may be more complicated for Asian American girls and women because they live at such a crossroads of different stereotypes and expectations—for Asians, Americans, Asian Americans, Asian American girls, Asian American women, girls and women, daughters, partners, etc.— many of which are contradictory. Talking about race is not enough, nor is talking about gender. We need to talk about both. In addition, parents may not want to talk about it or may not know how.

So here are some of the messages with which I have started bludgeoning my teenage daughters as they start looking towards college:

• Finish your education first.
• Protect your reputation.
• Protect and monitor your online identity.
• Watch your drink. Do not get completely out-of-control drunk in public.
• Always travel with a friend and watch out for each other. Always let someone know where you are and who you are with. Keep an eye out for escape routes before you need them.
• Be aware of how others may perceive you. Do not let their misperceptions drive you, but understand that sometimes people never get past the mask or stereotype they perceive. Sometimes these stereotypes can be used to your advantage. Other times you have to project the “real you” twice as loudly to overcome the mask.
• Do not do the opposite of what your parents say just to be contrary. They may be old and out of touch, but they want the best for you. Try to understand.
• Learn self-defense, martial arts, or dance. Walk briskly with your head held high. How you carry yourself goes a long way.
• Do not worry so much about being nice, rehearse those responses that you find embarrassing.
• From Lisa Lee:  “Be with someone who makes you happy.”

Then, as if on cue, Texts from Hillary Clinton to the rescue. Wow, is she badass. I want to be badass like that when I grow up.

I love learning from our feisty elders. Mary Kamidoi of the Japanese American Citizens League recently spoke at my daughter’s high school about her experiences during the Japanese American internment during World War II. She speaks starkly about the conditions, indignities, and costs of the internment, but she follows up with a very strong message to young people to stand up and speak out against bullying and harassment. She has no patience for people who meekly submit “nicey-nicey” because they think it is their culture (gaman in Japanese), and she demonstrates over and over again the strength that grows when one takes the time to speak out and educate others. Total Badass.

Note: Frances is now scheduling fall workshops on “Raising Strong and Confident Asian American Girls” and “Preparing our Children for Racism.”

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media’s Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

Last Thursday, my son, eight-year-old Little Brother, did not want to go to school. No fever. No stomachache. No runny nose. Normally, I am a big softie when the children do not feel well, but that day I had to go to the courthouse, so no time for fooling around. As I carried him to school under one arm, socks and shoes and breakfast and backpack under the other, he finally admitted that he did not want to go to school because something had happened on the playground a day earlier. Nothing too serious—definitely not bullying—just boys playing a little too rough, but he was frightened. He did not want to get his friend in trouble, but I told him that he had to tell, if only to help his friend learn how to become a better friend, and to let the grownups know to keep a closer eye on the foursquare. Together, we went in to tell his teacher and the principal, after which Little Brother was able to go to class without worries.

The Trayvon Martin case was wearing heavily on my mind. It was important to me that Little Brother tell his teacher and principal as “practice.” Time to review the skills I teach my children in preparation for the bullying and hate crimes I hope never come. Because when it happens, one can never think quickly enough, these skills have to already be there.

Say Something: When I was a child, I did not know I was supposed to tell, or when I did I was completely ignored. So I tell my children that if they experience or witness any bullying or name-calling, to stand up for their friends and to tell an adult. If that adult does not do anything, then tell another adult, and then another. Similarly, parents have to set an example and say something, too. (If their friends are the aggressors, then they should say something to their friends.) For practice, I encourage them to challenge their friends instead of simply going along, “Ewwww, Twilight. Thank you, but no.”

The Exact Words: Whether or not a bullying incident or crime is racially motivated needs proof, usually in the form of the words spoken at the time of attack, including threats and slurs. When my children tell stories around the dinner table, I often ask, “What did she say, exactly?” especially when it seems like they might be exaggerating or generalizing. (This is a useful skill for future journalists, too.)

Identify: Pay attention to what people look like and learn to recognize and describe people of different races (and what they are wearing). We joke about “All you people look the same,” but this is a skill that can be developed to help identify witnesses and allies as well as attackers.

Call for help: Move towards people, telephone a friend, or dial 911 for help. The girl that Trayvon Martin was talking to on the phone when George Zimmerman started following him became a witness this way.

Write it down: Write down what happened as soon as possible, in as much detail as possible, before you forget. If bullying is continuing, keep a log of all the incidents, with names, dates, details, witnesses.

Record it: 68-year-old veteran Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr. was shot to death in his own home by police last November. However, the whole thing was recorded by his medic alert system, including his own testimony. Kids always have an iPod or cell phone in their pocket. Make sure they know how to use the record function so that they can record without looking at it, without taking it out of their pocket.

For Parents: Get involved in your children’s schools, extracurricular activities, and community. This may sound benign, but the reason to get involved is that in case anything happens, then the people in charge already know you, trust you, and will be more willing to help you. Support civil rights organizations before you need them.

I cannot stand having to prepare our children of color for the possibility of bullying and hate crimes, but even worse is to imagine the many ways justice can go wrong afterwards.

Thanks to Roland Hwang of American Citizens for Justice, the civil rights nonprofit formed after the baseball bat beating death of Vincent Chin, for his ideas.

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media’s Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang
photograph courtesy of my daughter Margot.

After Indian American Rutgers student Dharun Ravi was convicted of bias intimidation, I sent the very long New Yorker article about the case to my teenagers so that they can understand what kind of digital footprint they leave whenever they do anything online, and to remind them that regardless of what they might actually be doing, they need to be aware that sometimes those actions may be perceived quite differently by others, including people who do not understand technology and culture, including people with power.

Although I agree that homophobic bullying should not be tolerated, because of the technical complexity of this case, I cannot shake the nagging feeling that had Dharun Ravi been white, or if Tyler Clementi had been a person of color, this case might never have been prosecuted, and certainly would not have been punished so harshly (Ravi faces a possible sentence of ten years and deportation). Ravi admits to being a jerk, but there have been too many other cases in which white bullies have gotten away with much worse. Harry Lew. Danny Chen. Phoebe Prince. Vincent Chin. Luis Ramirez. Trayvon Martin.

My heart breaks as I read articles by African American mothers about the rules they make for their children because they know how easily their children could be Trayvon Martin:

• Do not run in public.
• Do not touch anything in a store, and always ask for a bag.
• Be polite and cooperative if stopped by the police.
• Keep your hands visible.

I think about the rules that I teach my children—for both race and gender—and I quickly add a few to my list that I had not previously considered. My children are multiracial, so they might be perceived as any number of stereotypes. They might be perceived as Caucasian, different kinds of Asian, Hispanic, Arab, Native American, foreign, exotic, lotus blossom, both victim and suspect.

• No means no, but never get yourself into a situation where that “No” is the only thing keeping you safe.
• Stand up straight and walk briskly, head held high. Look like you know where you are going. Always walk with a friend.
• Always close and lock the door to the house. Always leave the office door open when talking with male teachers, professors, or bosses.
• Do not dress “too Asian” (except at Asian cultural events) or too sexy (because if anything happens, people will blame you).
• Never use your real information online.
• And most important, always pay attention to the exact words and slurs people use. Memorize them. Write them down. Tell an adult. Stand up for your friends. This one we practice.

I am not only trying to prevent trouble they might encounter, I am also secretly preparing them for the court battle that would follow.

I review constantly because, like these African American mothers, I want these to become habits, so that they will not forget. My teenagers used to be indignant, “You never let me cross the street by myself until I was in sixth grade!” To which I answered, “See? It worked. You didn’t get run over by a truck, which would have hurt.” However, now they tease and reassure me at the same time, by quietly holding my hand as we cross any street.

Geraldo Rivera has been ridiculed for saying that the hoodie was as much responsible for Trayvon Martin‘s death as George Zimmerman [He has since apologized]. Certainly, he is overstating things, and it does not excuse Zimmerman. However, I understand why Rivera might not let his son wear one. Sure, you have the right to wear what you want. Sure, you have the right to be in a public place. Yes, definitely you should work for change. However, you also need to be aware of how some (crazy/violent/racist) people might perceive you. The trick is figuring out how to balance your freedom of expression with protecting your safety. Safety first, my child.

The heartbreak is that these rules alone will never be guarantee enough. I am devastated by the cold murder of Iraqi American Shaima Alawadi, 32, mother of five, US citizen, beaten to death with a tire iron in her own home, with a note to “go back to your country you terrorist.”

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media’s Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

Mira Awad

There was a world of music in her head growing up in Israel’s Galilee.

Sting and Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. But there was also Um Khalthoum and Fairuz plus traditional and modern Bulgarian music

Like a salad of a soul’s favorites, the melodies and harmonies have been mixed and melded again and again.

And that is how her music came about, says Mira Awad, who is appearing Friday (March 23rd) at the Old Town School of Music. She will sing in Arabic and English, most of of Arabic songs her own creations.

The musical mixture that she creates , she explains, “is not a conscious decision.”

It is rather the fruit of being the daughter of a Palestinian father and a Bulgarian mother, of growing up an Arab among Israel’s 1.5 million Arab citizens and of feeling very proud about being an Arab but also believing strongly in coexistence with her Jewish fellow citizens.

Within Israel, she has performed regularly on tv and on stage. She has made a solid career for herself.

Indeed, Awaḍ represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow along with the well-known Israeli singer, Achinoam Nini, who is known outside Israel as Noa. The two have been singing together for a number of years.

But more significantly, Awad was the first Arab-Israeli singer to represent Israel in the contest.

They composed the song together and it is about coexistence. But it came on the heels of the Israel’s fighting in Gaza, a moment that only fanned hatred and fears between Arabs and Jews.

Her appearance in Moscow on behalf of Israel wrought much criticism from Arabs, who accused her of “being a sellout or politically stupid,” and urged her to step down.

“It was a hard time for me,” she recalls. “I had already had thoughts of quitting. I didn’t know if I wanted to represent Israel. But I took two days and my conclusion was that at the end of my life I want to do everything I believe in and that would be carrying on with the dialogue.”

So, too, she wanted to make another point: that Israel’s Arab citizens need to be recognized and not marginalized.

Her willingness to speak her beliefs has cut her off from Arab audiences. She has never sung in the Palestinian territories, or before an audience in the Arab world, or let alone a strictly Arab audience outside of Israel. These are audiences she dreams of reaching.

Once she wanted to just be a musician and not a symbol.

“But the years have taught me that I cannot separate between the two and I was built strong enough to carry the burden.”

http://www.myspace.com/miraawad/music/songs/bahlawan-49057796

http://www.miraawad.com/es-en/home

http://lyrics.wikia.com/Noa_%26_Mira_Awad:There_Must_Be_Another_Way

http://www.oldtownschool.org/concerts/2012/3/23_awad.php

A few weeks ago, in the midst of Linsanity and some of its racist reactions, journalist Grace Hwang of Hapamama.com asked if I thought racism was taken more seriously than sexism.

I was still thinking about how best to answer her when Rush Limbaugh spent three days vomiting all over Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke.

Well, I guess there was my answer.

Some of the racist taunts that hit Jeremy Lin might possibly be able to be explained as accidental, insensitivity, ignorance, (barely), but Limbaugh’s incredible remarks (coupled with all the transvaginal ultrasound legislation by white male congressmen and the all-male testimony on birth control that brought about Limbaugh’s remarks in the first place) left me sputtering.

What is wrong with these people?

I was gratified that many sponsors pulled advertising from Rush Limbaugh’s program, and I especially appreciated the statement from David Friend, CEO of Carbonite, “No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency.”

When President Obama called Miss Fluke to express his disappointment in how she had been treated, I felt like that call was for me, too.

At my children’s elementary school, the values taught are posted all over the school with pride: respect, trustworthiness, truthfulness, active listening, no put-downs, personal best. The children are all so adorably earnest as they actively try to embody these values, to become better people, to become better friends to one another.

What is it that went so terribly wrong for Limbaugh and some of these Congressmen between elementary school and adulthood?

Before I could think too deeply on that question, I happened to go to the public library. On the “New Books” shelf, I grabbed a bunch of books for Little Brother at random. Since it was the end of February (African American History Month) and the beginning of March (Women’s History Month and National Reading Month), I found some real treasures that taught me something and gave me hope that the kids are going to be alright.

In “Shoebox Sam,” by Mary Brigid Barrett and illustrated by Frank Morrison, two African American children, Delia and Jesse, spend their Saturdays helping out at Shoebox Sam’s store, “where old shoes become like new again and anyone in need finds a friend.” Among the many customers who come in that day are two hungry, possibly homeless, people who are allowed to eat as many doughnuts and sandwiches as they need, for whom “specials of the day” are instantly created, and who are treated with dignity and respect. I did not even know that such a thing as used shoe stores existed, but I learned how we can all afford to be more kind and generous, even with our most prized possessions.

In “Jazz Age Josephine,” by Jonah Winter and Illustrated by Marjorie Priceman, we see how incredibly poor Josephine Baker was as a child, the racism she faced during her career, the choice she made to move to France where she could dance and be treated with respect, and her involvement in the American civil rights movement.

In “Grace for President,” by Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by LeUyen Pham, an African American girl named Grace is shocked to discover that there has never been a girl President of the United States. When her teacher holds a mock election, she decides to run. A popular boy from another class runs against her on the slogan, “the best MAN for the job.” Grace campaigns like mad while the boy candidate is unworried because he has already calculated that the boy delegates have more electoral votes than the girls. As the children vote, state by state, the vote is evenly split down gender lines, until the very last state—represented by a boy—casts his votes…for the best person for the job.

Dignity. Respect. Hard work. Courage. Truth. Honesty. This is what we teach our children every day. I fear that I am incredibly naïve, but we need more stories like these to forestall continuing racism and sexism.

Note: For more inspiration during National Reading Month, check out Argentinean artist Raul Lemesoff’s “Weapon of Mass Instruction”

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media’s Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.